The Diputación de Alicante, through the department of culture, is about to open the application period for subsidies for the rehabilitation of municipally owned churches and monuments, which this year has increased its amount significantly with an initial allocation of 850,000 euro expandable up to 2,350,000 euro.

The First Vice President and Deputy for Culture, Julia Parra, has detailed that “this opens the possibility of tripling the amount of this successful line of aid, which last year began with an allocation of 800,000 and will now have an additional one and a half million euro, a growth of more than 276%, with which we hope to meet the numerous requests from municipalities and interested entities,” according to a statement from the provincial institution.

Parra has confirmed that the aid criteria “have been modified to include all the projects that applied for these rehabilitation grants in 2021 and to facilitate the administrative process; in addition, with the available funds, new requests can be subsidised,” she pointed out.

As a novelty, this year 40 points will be awarded to all applicants who correctly presented the required documentation in the last call, also fulfilling the requirements.

In this case, the interested parties may participate only by expressing their willingness to attend the 2022 process again and after formally requesting that the documentation they provided be considered as submitted, being exempt from repeating that process.

Another novelty of the 2022 call is the extension of the execution period. Compared to last year, the start-up of the aid application process has been speeded up, which will start in mid-February, and seven more months will be granted to facilitate the completion of the works.

The period to complete the subsidized actions will end on 1 June 2023, and supporting documents may be submitted until 15 June of the next year.

The aid has also taken into account in the assessment criteria the municipalities at risk of depopulation, which will be financed 100% of the requested subsidy, within the maximum amount allowed in this call, established at 40,000 euro.

Parra has guaranteed the continuity of this aid and has assured: “We have worked against the clock to increase the budget significantly and introduce changes and advances that we are convinced will facilitate the execution of works that will enhance numerous municipal buildings and churches of the province of Alicante”.